Apologies for street language in advance.
Celebrities, who are all alphabetised these days, play a big part in the Yoga Teacher’s CV. The nearer to the letter A your celebrity student is, the more dollar you’re gonna earn. In the past I’ve often been referred to as ‘Yoga teacher to the Stars.’ Ok, I’ve only ever been called that in the local paper when I was living in Manchester – so hardly Vogue Magazine. The Manchester local press idea of a star is someone off Corrie or the now deceased Brookie – both terrible and both full of actors from what we can call the celebrity C-or maybe even D list, i.e. not really a star but god luv’ em they’re on telly so that by default gets them on the list albeit at the lower end.
So when you get the call from Ozzy Osbourne’s PA to teach yoga to the The King of Darkness, The Biter of Bats, the Heavy Metal Maniac himself, it means one of 2 things.
1: It’s me daft mate taking the piss, still thinking that even though I’ve been teaching yoga for 20 odd years that I’m gonna one day wake up and go back on an E bender with him.
2: That thank fuck for that, after what seems like a lifetime of teaching failed actors, ie the aforementioned soap stars, I’m finally dining at the top table of A list celebrities. Maybe we could consider Ozzy to be AA – and there’s a shit dad joke in there somewhere.
And thank the Lord/Buddha/Krishna/etc. that the above call was not from Madfrit Mark of Manchester. Ok I totally made that name up to get some M alliteration vibz going. Sorry I’ll finish that sentence in a moment but just going off piste a little – no Mark not ‘off on the piss’ but off piste meaning I’m just moving away from what I was talking about. When I first emailed a piece of writing I’d done to a friend of mine in the US – lets just call him Chandler, ok that’s actually his real name, I mean who the fuck would make up a name like Chandler to hide someone’s identity. I mean it’s a pretty embarrassing name to begin with. But anyway, he sent back a message saying that he loved it and if he was my publisher he would market me as Hunter S. Thompson in a tracksuit. Now I love Hunter. I’ve read most of his books and there’s this weird connection between us in that he shot himself dead on 20th February which also happens to be my birthday. If you’ve read any of his books (his most well known book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was made into a shit film with Johnny ‘Dickhead’ Depp ) (Luv ya Johnny) you’ll know that he’s a brilliant writer and the high school drivel that I come out with bears absolutely no resemblance to his sharp erudite prose. With or without a tracksuit. And yes I had to look up the meaning of erudite.
Now briefly to go off-off piste: When I was diagnosed with ADHD a few years back, I very tentatively told only a few friends. Literally everyone of them to a man and woman came back with ‘oh I thought you already knew!’ Bastards. I mean why the fuck did they keep the fact that they knew I couldn’t concentrate on one thing for more than 30 seconds or even close the fucking fridge door to themselves under the presumption that ‘I thought you knew already.’ And here’s me just thinking I’m a busy guy.
This attention disorder deficit thing affects my writing – No shit, I hear you say. So sometimes I’ll be telling a story and well here we are: Far far away from the first couple of paragraphs. So let’s get back on it.
I knew Tom (Ozzy’s PA) from a previous celebrity encounter when he was publicly assisting or maybe even privately assisting – what the fuck does PA even mean, shit acronym, really – Russell Brand. Russell was my first A-lister. Can he still be considered an A-lister ? I find his latest incarnation as spokesperson for the new age warriors sat in his fucking mansion all a little bit tiresome to be honest – but his heart was/is in the right place. And so was his Primary Series. I taught Russell every day for a week in some posh hotel in Manchester. It was a case of turn up put him through his yoga paces then naff off before he told any jokes. Apparently the news was he’d packed in saluting the H dragon in exchange for saluting the sun a la Ashtanga Yoga. A mate of mine calls Ashtanga a yoga practice for obsessive Westerners, which always makes me smile. Me n our Russ gud ol’ fashioned Western obsessives. But after that week I put it at the top of my CV in capital letters RUSSELL BRAND’S YOGA TEACHER. I couldn’t give a toss I’d only taught him a few times. He was now my best mate and I was his Yoga GURU and my one to one lessons were now A list expensive. Fuck you Mike Baldwin.
So fast forward maybe 10 or so years. I’d gone from the Manchester streets that were paved with lots and lots of fucking rain to the darling how fabulous streets of Los Angeles. You can read all about that journey in the blog called ‘Matt, why are you faking a smile? Have you gone all LA on us? It’s not a fake smile I’m grimacing ya daft cow I’ve just had a vasectomy.’ True Story.
A number I didn’t know blew up on my cell phone ( Yes I’m using American vernacular here, well I was in LA -is that ok McLovin* ?)
Tom – Hi Matt it’s Tom.
Me (not having a fucking clue who Tom is) – Hi Tom, great to hear from you mate. How’s things.
Tom- Things are great, Matt. I’m now working with Ozzy Osbourne. Can you come over to his place in the Hollywood Hills to teach him yoga?
Me- Mark ya daft cunt is that you?
Tom- Pardon
Me (realising it’s not me daft mate and trying not to sound like IVE FUCKING ARRIVED whilst running around my apartment punching the air) Ozzy Osbourne? Yes of course – let me get my diary.
Me (puts down phone and starts to open and shut kitchen drawers to sound like I’m looking for my non existent diary which was full of non existent A lister celebrity clients.) Ah, got it. Great when does he want to start?
Tom filled me in a few details. Apparently Ozzy had recently done some Goat Yoga. Now if this was for someone off Coronation Street I would have told them to fuck off and put the phone down. But this was Ozzy and for Ozzy I would keep it to myself that I thought Goat Fucking Yoga was fucking stupid and anyone, anyone fucking stupid enough to do it was obviously a dickhead and under no circumstances would I be teaching them yoga. But they were offering me $500 a lesson and for that kind of dough I would have dressed up as a fucking goat.
I was booked in for 2pm a week on Thursday. Finally! Finally I had arrived properly on the streets that have no shame of Los Angeles. Goat Yoga – fabulous darling can you pay me in cash? Tom had told me that under no circumstances was I to mention the Ozzy teaching gig to anyone – not even my priest. In fact the first thing I had to do chez Ozzy was to sign a NDA – a non disclosure agreement meaning that I was bound by law to keep my trap shut and not tell anyone anything about how good or bad Ozzy’s downward dog was. Yeah right mate. As soon as I put the phone down to Tom I had created a new What’s App group called Bat Eater Teacher and put EVERY SINGLE FRIEND AND FAMILY MEMBER in the chat.
Wednesday (the day before me n Ozzy were supposed to get bizzy with da yoga):
Tom (via text) – Hi Matt, can we reschedule Ozzy’s yoga lesson? He’s got an important meeting with Sharon tomorrow now.
Me (via text) – No you fucking can’t. Tell Sharon to fuck off and organise the meeting for another day.
Ok so I didn’t write that but I wanted to. I texted back something along the lines of: Yes of course that’s absolutely fine that means I can go earlier to Tom Cruise’s place. I’m teaching him Scientology yoga I have to dress up as a Thetan.
Yes yes ok. I didn’t write that either but I will next time. Well, there won’t be a next time. Not with the ole Ozz-man.
I knew from the moment that I got the Ozzy teaching gig that the chances of going more than once were pretty much non existent. This is how most famous people yoga teaching gigs play out. Famous Person sees other famous person doing yoga and getting good press out of it, so they decide I’ll have a bit of that action, I could do with some good press stories. I guess Ozzy couldn’t care less about positive or negative news stories but still. So the famous person buys the Gucci Yoga Mat and the Gucci leotard (that’s an interesting image: Ozzy in Gucci, darling) they do one fucking lesson then quit and move onto the next potential practice that could get them on the front page of whatever naff celebrity mag everyone’s reading. Oh, cynical me! And well this particular famous person teaching gig didn’t get past the first hurdle of an actual sodding lesson.
The class was rescheduled for the following Thursday.
The Wednesday before that fucking Thursday:
Tom (via text) – Hi Matt, unfortunately Ozzy has got an ingrowing toe nail – can we reschedule?
Me (via text) – Ok fine
When you text Ok fine it basically means you cunt.
So this same game played out over the next few weeks. The week after that Ozzy is having an operation. The week after he was away on business and yadder yadder yadder. Eventually they just stopped and the game was over. I was gutted. I had my whole Ozzy and Me autobiography already written. My year long ‘An evening with Ozzy Osbourne’s yoga teacher’ events were cancelled. I would no longer be dining out on the Ozzy Osbourne’s yoga teacher – I couldn’t add his name above Russell’s on my CV.
What the fuck, I shrugged, finally realising there was a silver lining to the this whole shit show. Maybe I can’t be the guy that taught Ozzy Yoga but fuck me, surely there’s a market for the guy who nearly taught Ozzy yoga – and yes that’s you schmuko ; ).
* if you know , you know.